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Overcoming Resentment

Resentment is the pain that results from believing that something should be different than it is. It is an unconscious defense mechanism that protects our conscious mind against fear. Insomuch as it works it saves us from the hard work of having to change our beliefs to match reality, especially when to make that change before we are adquately prepared to integrate it, would work against the development of our higher self. That is to say, resentment as a tool to cope with persons/institutions you think suck, works really well until it doesn’t. Most of us medicate ourselves to further avoid the consequences of resentment and fear. Medicating takes innumerable forms, from the obvious to the subtle. The obvious forms are easily recognizable -smoking, drinking, drugging, bingeing on sex, sugar, interwebs, news, porn. The more subtle compensations are more challenging to identify because they also operate unconsciously – excessive exercise, co-dependencies, playing the victim, workaholism, bullying, self-abuse.

Overcoming resentment is an inside job. There is nothing you can change externally that will solve your shit. If you change scenery the same resentment (fear) will just constellate around the next relationship or job whatever the case may be until you learn to overcome it. You attract the forces that you need to learn from – the entire universe does this – it’s a wonder it takes people so long to discover this fundamental principle. BUT, awareness is just the first step. NEXT, comes practice. Belief or faith is the last gift in the process. I’ll share a revelation I had running just this last week.

I get a lot from running. I gain access to my higher self – a type of euphoric communion takes place. In that window of revelation this past week the thought hit me that I haven’t been attracting a very familiar resentment – one that I’ve had my entire fucking life. I have consistently attracted authority figures in my life that I resented and rebelled against. I’m assuming it began with my father, but it’s only been over the last seven years or so that I’ve become AWARE of it, as a pattern. I can point to each individual who I resented and how they embodied the very forces I was being called to look at and overcome.

So much of overcoming resentment takes place in what are called inventories. In most people, when it happens, these inventories take place in semi-meditative states of reflection – on the toilet, when people lay their heads down to rest, in a trance after lunch, driving home. For those people whose awareness has grown these inventories grow – they develop, more often than not, into writing practices. Almost everyone I respect on the matter practices written inventories on resentment and fear – CONSTANTLY.

Overcoming resentment is less like fighting and much more like surrendering. I’ll never forget the last boss I had that I really had a bad resentment toward. I was aware enough to know that I was learning, that in fact the very judgment that I cast upon her was being returned to me in kind. I resented the resentment, the trap, the impassibility of it all. The solution was to surrender, again. “God?! Again!?? WTF!!” “Yes, again. SURRENDER.” I had this intuition that Spirit kept reminding me the entire time – about a semester’s time – that I was going to overcome this dynamic that produced this toxic resentment. I felt my resentments finality – the finality of the specific internal configuration producing or attracting the circumstances of disempowerment that so easily gave way to resentment.

Now two years later, that old, old life-long resentment is gone. It was a process of overcoming that took time, but I found that my resentment has left me in direct proportion to the growth of my empowerment. First, I became aware of the resentment (fear-pattern). Second, I went to practicing surrender. Surrender looked like inventory processes over and over when the resentment would crop up. I was using the phone a great deal. I would check in my inventories within a trusted network of understanding, closed mouthed allies. The development of faith – belief in myself – is the positive consequence that resulted from all this work. As I’ve changed internally, then and only then, have my external conditions shifted so that I’ve literally been placed in a protected position against such negative forces. Like MAGIC!!

I was on the treadmill when I came to my realization that my resentment was gone. I couldn’t help but smile and chuckle to myself – almost in amazement. I guess at some point without knowing it I had resigned to always attracting that resentment, always suffering from that sick pattern. I didn’t realize that my faith in overcoming that resentment had started when I became aware of it and that each time I surrendered it and practiced written inventories and intimate disclosure I was growing the faith it took to overcome it.

Don’t delay overcoming resentment – shit will kill you! If you’re looking for solutions to old patterns of resentment and fear, then you’ve come to the right place. My entire life’s mission is about helping you heal and transform. Reach out to me and let’s work together. Click Here!